.AU domains may finally be coming soon!

By
Nicolo Nasol
|
Friday, 7 April 2017

Exciting changes to the Australian domain landscape, started back in 2015, are now taking form, with the long-awaited direct .AU web domain finally coming soon. Possibly.
Derek Whitehead, the Names Panel chair and adjunct professor of Swinburne University of Technology, stated convincing reasons for having direct registrations for Australian users, including that a direct .AU address "[creates] more options" and offers "a wide range of new choices for registrants"; and since it's simple and concise, it's more "appealing and memorable," it makes "the domain name system easier to use."
This will enable users to register a web address directly as .AU instead of .COM.AU or .NET.AU. Many people told auDa (the .au Domain Administration) that they wanted this to be an option. However, as with any change this will also have repercussions and has faced arguments, including that the change could it could potentially confuse the users. since it disrupts the hierarchy of Australian DNS, which is now responsible for more than 3 million users.

Announcing Their First Steps

After more than an entire year of reviews and deliberations, auDa's recommendation of introducing second-level registrations into .AU has now been accepted by the board. Following this acceptance, auDA has taken their first steps toward making this change a reality for this great southern land.
auDa's names panel's report considered not just their members' input spanning over ten months, but also feedback received during rounds of consulting the public opinion. For this consultations process, the names panel has encouraged individuals and a wide range of stakeholder groups to freely submit their comments.
The board also commissioned an "independent market research" that showed that 60% of the respondents are willing to register "yourname.AU" it if were available.
auDA's steps will have further "extensive public consultation," these include market research, both qualitative and quantitative, so as to follow on with the gathered feedbacks from the research. The qualitative interviews commenced on 14 February 2017. Stay tuned for more news as we have it, from Australia's leading domain name registrar.